Firestorm
by silversurf4
Summary: Crews lands in hot water with Reese after her father tries to kill him...Rated T for language and sexual situations  COMPLETED 15 JUN 2011
1. Chapter 1

**CHAPTER ONE - Firestorm**

"_**When you are off the edge of a cliff, **_

_**legs dangling, hands grasping,**_

_**think of it as a gift – instant awareness."**_

The Saffir-Simpson scale might need revision if Dani Reese's ire were any yardstick.

She stalked the antiseptic hospital with the rage of a Category Five hurricane. The heel of her boots left sparks in their wake, the force of her gait echoing down the shiny linoleum scattering people like leaves before a fell wind and still she advanced. Her muttered curses and countenance firmly fixed in a scowl making her a terror on tiny heels. Her landfall, her destination was one curtained corner of an emergency room frothing with injuries and the intended target of her wrath – one six foot one inch red haired man who just couldn't leave well enough alone.

She reached for the curtain and the chains suspending it from the metal rod made a screeching sound as she dragged it back made for a dramatic entrance. Her face wore a scowl that gargoyles envied. Said rosy ruffian looked up with his face bearing strawberry colored scuff and impossible blue eyes and she had to fight to stay in that moment. She struggled against an outgoing tide of empathy, to hold onto her anger. _Damn him for making her care_.

"You fucking idiot," she snapped. "I told you to wait. Five fucking minutes Crews. Just five effing minutes," she quieted trying to tone down her tirade for the ten year old with the broken arm and wide eyes across the way.

"I know," he began, "you're mad."

She glared at him; effectively shutting him up and continued her tirade, "Look at you…" Her gaze dropped to his chest and shoulder, which bore heavy, raw and rough looking friction burns that would ripen to the blue-black color of a succulent plum. "You look like you were hit by a train."

"Not a train, just a car," his smile leaked through his split lower lip. The blood that welled there was the rich color of a Bing cherry and thick like syrup.

She caught herself before her concern compelled her to step toward him and thumb it from his cracked lip. She wheeled away hard, continuing her rant, "I told you he wanted you dead. You know what he's capable better than anyone. It's why I told you to wait, but do you listen? No… I mean why would you listen? I'm just your senior partner."

Her sarcasm dropped like ripe fruit falling from a tree. She concentrated her focused anger to deflect her need to touch him; her overwhelming desire to sooth his tired muscles and run her hands over his lean lines to satisfy herself he was whole and for other reasons she didn't want to acknowledge yet.

The storm summoned a stern look and braced her hands on hips prompting a response. "Say something…" she barked.

"It wasn't even a very nice car," he muttered wryly.

"This is not funny, Crews." She snapped holding onto her ire. "You are stupid, reckless, it was…"

"Something only you get to do," he finished her tirade with a rebuke of his own and a raised eyebrow bearing a butterfly bandage covering a cut that only escaped stitches by the thinnest of margins. He twisted his neck and wrung his hand through a kink there in the joist between his neck and bruised shoulder, but otherwise remained stubbornly mute in his own way of rebellion.

She stared transfixed and he watched her become impossibly angry. Her heat and energy hovered around nuclear and then she crossed the distance to him and engaged in her long awaited physical contact with him, but not the sort he hoped for. She slapped him as hard as she could.

Crews chuckled and when she drew back to hit him again he slid off the exam table and enveloped her in his arms. He held her tightly against him as she spent her rage like a loose shutter in a roaring window with gulps of guilty air against his chest.

"You fucking bastard," she whispered as he kissed her hair and shushed her gently.

"I'm sorry," he promised tenderly and meant every word of it.

"For going after him alone?"

"No. For making you worry," he explained.

"It is a very nice car," she grumbled. "He loves that car and the fact that he tried to kill you with it should tell you that he's not kidding Charlie. My father hates you. He will kill you if you let him," she prophesied.

"Then I won't let him," he drew back and captured her eyes, brushing a lock of hair from her face. The impulse to kiss her was strong enough he had to restrain himself, so he stoked her anger to reestablish their distance, "but I won't let you be a part of this."

He watched as the wide black of her pupils constricted and her gaze narrowed and he could feel her anger return. He absently thought he could spend a month just watching Reese's eyes constrict and dilate as she spun through emotions. They were her "tell", the one thing she could not hide, when her walls dropped and she froze him out entirely – her coffee colored eyes showed her fears and expectations they shone like neon in the darkness there.

"He's a criminal," she obstinately objected. "Catching him is MY job."

"He's your father," he patiently replied with his lips pursed. "Even though I'd rather not get slapped again - I'm not going to change my mind," he darkly joked. "Let me handle this."

"You just try and stop me, Crews. I'll go with you or I'll find him on my own." She shot back and pushed away from him physically and emotionally.

Dani Reese pouted better than anyone he knew. She could stay angry for hours, sometimes days. He was convinced she was the most stubborn woman he'd ever known and still he found himself admiring her spunk.

"Do you want a new partner?" he teased.

They had long since established she would not abandon him under any circumstance. She was perhaps the most loyal person he'd ever seen. Why she stayed with him after all trouble he brought her he never understood.

But as predicted, she shook her head vigorously and glared at him from under her dark lashes. "I want a partner who work with me, not on some private crusade, which he obviously can't do alone and sucks at – cause he manages to nearly get killed every time he's out playing lone wolf."

"Ouch," Charlie joked "and I thought these hurt," he gestured at his wounds. He didn't tell her about the forays she didn't already know about, many of which were wildly successful. He was putting the pieces together in ways that made his mouth water, but for the effect it would have on Reese – or more precisely her father.

The doctor picked that moment to appear and Reese's mouth snapped shut as she sublimated the smart assed retort on the tip of her buggy whip of a tongue.

"Ah, I see your wife has come to get you," the bespectacled man began oblivious to the minefield he'd walked into, "okay, Mr. Crews…these are your discharge instructions." Dani glowered but surprisingly didn't correct the man, as she'd been so quick to do in the past. He wasn't sure if she'd just gotten used to people inferring they were a couple or comfortable with the idea that someday they might be. He mentally stomped on the later half of his thought, which all too often of late strayed, to unprofessional thoughts about his little sable haired partner.

The doctor continued with little interest in whether either of them was listening or paying attention. "Now I'd recommend that she watch you for signs of a head injury although the x-ray showed nothing - those things can be discreet. This is for the pain, but wait twelve hours before taking any" he tore off a script then pulled it away as Crews reached for it choosing to hand it to Dani instead. She ducked her head to hide a guilty smirk as the oblivious physician continued. "You can get it filled at any pharmacy and you'll need to come back in two weeks and have those stitches removed."

Dani's head snapped up, and her snide grumbled "a head injury would be an improvement" comment was swallowed by the wide-eyed concern she could not hide. He was growing on her – he was sure of it - Charlie thought as he heard her ask, "What stitches?" in a much more subdued tone.

"These," he demonstrated proudly holding up his forearm which has been sliced open by some random piece of glass. Charlie thought it would end up to be one of his more orderly scars because of the precision of glass. It was neatly sewn together and taped over lightly with a paper tape that let her see every single stitch. He watched as her hand strayed to trace the outline of the seven-inch future scar with feather light touches of her fingertips.

In unguarded moments the depth of feeling in her eyes was something he could become lost in. Charlie realized if he let himself he could love this mercurial nymph in two-inch heels trailing a cloak of attitude like a mighty hurricane pulling winds across miles of water. She had instantly morphed from intense ire to involuntary compassion in milliseconds, there was no guile in her reactions - she was so very raw and heartbreakingly real.

He took a deep deliberate breath and pushed her away again - with his words for her own safety, "Honey, is that concern I hear in your voice?" he teased.

Her sideways glance dripped brimstone as the fire rekindled in her eyes.

This was where he needed to keep her – safely away from him. She was already too damned close for her own good. While Charlie's scars were visible, he could see the ones on Reese's soul. Even though he wanted nothing more than to kiss the curse words off her tongue and bleed her soul dry of pain; he was determined not to let anyone harm her while he still drew breath – not even him.


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER TWO**

"_**The mind creates a chasm only the heart can cross. ~S. Levine"**_

They exited the hospital together, Charlie stubbornly refusing a sling and wearing only a thin shirt soaked in his own blood. They agreed their first stop was his home because he currently resembled a character from a zombie movie.

"Where's your car?" she quietly inquired as they crept through the stillness of the parking garage towards hers. "Not that I'm going to let you drive it, but just so I can have traffic division tow it to a safe neighborhood."

He shrugged resisting sharing anything that might help her. He resisted telling her, trying to enforce his barriers against her aiding in his pursuit of her father. It was late, very dark and quiet as they walk through the garage in silence, neither sure of what to say. That was probably what saved his life, their collective silence because Jack Reese's jacket made a slight rustling noise as he brushed the concrete pylon he was hiding behind and leveled a pistol at Crews.

Charlie was caught flatfooted and he knew he was dead the instant before Jack's finger transitioned to the trigger; that long millisecond when Dani Reese stepped in front of him stretched into an eternity. Charlie was awestruck, her devotion went far beyond what he expected but it was not something he was ready for.

Dani wasn't even sure why she did it but the movement drew her attention and the gun evoked her protective instinct, but when her eyes focused on the man behind it she knew he would not shoot. If looks could kill though they'd have both been burned to ash where they stood as her father's glare lit his way.

Her hand was on her own pistol, but there was no way she'd get there in time, so she froze waiting. Her father's eyes narrowed and he spun away and vanished. She's saved her partner by placing herself directly in her father's line of sight, into the path of a bullet meant for him and only Jack's paternal instincts and SWAT honed reactions prevented a fatal error.

She relaxed and let out a long shuddered sigh. She turned to face him and found him paler than normal and something akin to anger coloring his countenance.

His voice asked her in a hoarse whisper, "Why would you do that?"

She shrugged and quipped caustically, "Someone has to save your ass."

Crews seized her by the shoulders and shook her hard. "He could have killed you. What the hell were you thinking?" He rapidly became irrationally and irrevocably angry. It was the first time she'd seen his anger directed at her. The full force of it was frightening and awesome in a terrible way.

"Now you're mad?" she responded with ire of her own. _This man wore her out, infuriated, disturbed and perplexed her and yet she'd just reflexively stepped in front of a bullet for him. What the hell did that mean?_

"Did you know he wouldn't shoot you?" he whispered trying to keep the rage contained.

Again he was met with a non-committal shrug and the Reese patented eye-roll. "Look at me," he commanded. "Don't you ever do that. You do that again and we aren't partners anymore. I never want you to do that, Dani." His deliberate use of her first name drove his point home. This was intensely personal to him. "Why would you do that?" his whisper begged her to explain that degree of self sacrifice to him, "I don't deserve that. Never do that, Dani," he rambled as he subconsciously reached for her.

She told herself it was the same impulse she'd felt and resisted inside – just to know she was sound, but as his hand brushed hair from her face, knuckles grazing her cheek and he gave into the desire to sink his hand into the smooth coolness of her hair, his groan was her undoing. It was subaudible, she felt it rather than heard it -but it resonated deep inside her. She licked her lips and sought his clear blue eyes and what she found there awakened a sleeping giant of need in them both.

The fire she felt flare between them had nothing to do with anger and everything to do with want, desire and something deeper she didn't want to name. He closed his eyes as a tear slipped from one and stepped closer, she leaned and he pulled and she was in his arms again for a second time that night. Her hands found his and they stilled. The air was thick with potential energy. Molecules paused in their constant elliptical arcs and time stood still.

"You can't do this. Please…" he begged quietly. "I can take almost anything else, but can't handle losing you. Promise me you won't make me lose the only thing I still care about Reese." For a long time they just stood there breathing. Dani did not trust herself to speak for fear of emotion coloring her voice. Then a door slammed, an engine sparked to life and reality flooded back in.

"Let's go home," she told him, forcing herself free from what she desperately wanted and pulling him toward her car. His long lean frame squeezed into her tiny compact car and they drove home in silence. The consecutive brushes with death and a ride on the adrenaline roller coaster had taken its toll on the battered and bruised man beside her. His eyes shone, though with tears or glazed over in pain she could not tell. Nothing was said of his impassioned plea and he stared out the window into the abyss in as dark a place as she'd ever seen her sunshine clad Zen warrior.

Crews allow himself to wallow in the notion that to save Dani - he had to push her away. This chaffed against his heartfelt desire to hold her hold her close and it was more than physical draw for he wanted her with body, mind and soul. It was the fiercest need he'd felt in a century, one he struggled to suppress – tonight he was losing that battle.


	3. Chapter 3

**CHAPTER THREE** - **Dani's POV (mostly)**

"_**If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on,**_

_**he must close his eyes and walk in the dark." ~St John of the Cross**_

She stood in the quiet coolness of Charlie Crews' kitchen letting the soothing muted colors wash over her and listening to the sound of nothing happening. The Zen of it made her smile and think of Charlie. This 'nothing' was a welcome respite, after their mutual night of bedlam. The solace of the early morning hours was a welcome relief, but for a niggling at the back her brain that involved the battered man now sprawled with the abandon of a six-year-old child sideways across his massive bed.

She'd checked in on him after returning from a solo flight to the pharmacy to find him just a hair under comatose in his giant bedroom lit in shades of black and grey by the fading moon. He'd mumbled something reassuring and trailed a warm hand down her exposed arm before returning to the pull of sleep. So she'd left him to rest and found herself staring longingly at his half drunken long neck beer sweating on the countertop. Crews must have started it to take the edge off with this liquid luxury before succumbing to the lure of his bed and deep sleep.

It mocked her, promising all her problems could be assuaged with two little Percocet and half a Corona – at least for a few hours. She knew addiction was a lifelong battle. She fought it well now; having the upper hand on good days, his faith in her and his quiet strength helped. But sometimes her defenses were worn thin and the enemy pressed its advantage. This was one of those nights and his faith in her and his damnable quiet strength one of her biggest problems.

She turned away from those triple temptations and stalked outside to the patio and the sheet of still water glistening in Crews pool to give herself distance from the tantalizing easy high and luxury of forgetting. She didn't want to give in to her weakness; she was stronger than that now – and yet.

The moon reflected in the water and it's light was clear and strong, yet it shone alone. The lone call of a coyote in the canyon painted an audible picture of her loneliness. _Which was worse? To actually be alone? Or to be with someone and still feel alone?_ She realized she did not know what being truly and completely alone felt like – but Crews did. She always had the ability to attract companionship but it wasn't real, they weren't real – Crews was.

She wanted him and she knew she shouldn't. He was real to her in ways no one had been in years and to lose that for a night of errant sex did not make sense, but it didn't make him any less seductive to her than that bottle or those little pink pills.

Her arm still tingled from the feeling of his hand trailing its length. He did things to her and she could tell it was the same for him. She watched the desire cross his features and then observed as he deliberately steeled himself and pushed away.

It would be so easy for them both to give themselves over to what they both desired – closeness, intimacy, trust. _The foundation of all good relationships was trust - right? Who did she trust more than Crews? No one. Was that good enough? Was that love? Why had she stepped in front of him tonight? _

The look that crossed her father's features spoke of the ultimate betrayal. She could never go back to the hero worship that she felt toward her father growing up. He wasn't that man anymore; maybe he never had been - maybe she had just wanted him to be that man.

Now she knew he'd broken the laws he'd sworn to uphold and the victim of one of his many felonious forays was closer to her than she thought it was possible for anyone to get. She held his at bay with stares and glares, her tough talk and insatiable anger, but Crews could smother the heat of her anger with a look and a heavy sigh. When his arms were around her, she felt at peace – like danger and pain were light years away.

The man she now contemplated, the one lying upstairs in bed exhausted and frazzled by the day's events, the man her father seemed determined to kill - had done terrible things, killed men and was capable of extreme violence and yet she did not fear him – she feared for him. And he had not shown fear for himself, if anything he was cavalier about harm done to him, but brought to the edge of tears by his fear of losing her. _What did that mean?_

"It means that we are were well and truly fucked," Dani shouted her anger to the dark canyon. Only the coyote's howl answered her, "exactly," she replied to the darkness. She smiled at the lunacy of their dance and the lengths they went to – to avoid what they both wanted and perhaps both needed – each other. As the dawn broke she went to check on her fair partner and perhaps permit herself some small measure of that closeness she coveted.

"Hey," she poked his bruised shoulder and was rewarded with a grunt. "Wake up," she demanded. Charlie smiled at her demanding tone; he loved that about her.

"It's been long enough. You're no more cracked in the head than when you started the day. Take these," she ordered as she forced the pills into his hand. The water glass in her grasp shook only the slightest bit revealing her tenseness.

"Where's my beer?" he inquired as if he'd only just opened the beverage.

"I drank it. You can have this." She lied shoving the glass roughly at him. She watched the liquid slosh at the lip of the glass and over it onto the duvet. "Shit," she wiped at the stain, which instantly sunk deep into bedding like she wanted to.

"No you didn't," he yawned.

"What?" she continued wiping ineffectually at the dark spot.

"You didn't drink that beer. You don't need to. You're stronger than that." He promised while he gingerly hoisted himself into a position to swallow the pills.

"I'm glad you think that," she said darkly with her eyes still downcast and hand still busying with rearranging nothing. He covered her hand, stilling it with his large pale one. She was always amazed at the warmth his pale body was able to generate, "I should get a towel," she said withdrawing.

"No," he said firmly as his hand closed around hers, "you should come to bed."

They reached these tipping points often. One would reach out, the other would retreat, then the reverse. This time however, they both wanted to give in at the same time. She released a shuddered sigh and let him win because in truth she wanted him to.

"But first open a window," he yawned and attempted a stretch he wouldn't be able to perform later. She inquired with her raised brow. "I like to hear the coyotes singing – it let's me know I'm not alone." He explained sheepishly.

She opened the window to the light dawn breeze as the sky began to turn amazing shades of mauve and pink. Then she let him draw her along side him into the contours of his body. She laid her head on his bruised shoulder, but if it caused him discomfort he showed no sign of it.

"You're not alone moron. I'm here," she chastised lightly, "and coyotes don't sing, they howl."

"Um hmm," he hummed as a contented sigh escaped him.

She couldn't tell if he was agreeing with her or arguing his point, but decided it didn't matter and surrendered to the pull of deep sleep safe in his arms. Only when he was there beside her could she absolutely certain he wasn't out doing something stupid she reasoned.


	4. Chapter 4

**CHAPTER FOUR – Firestorm (Jack's POV)**

"_**To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it."**_

"Stupid bastard doesn't even lock his fuckin' doors…" muttered Jack Reese as he crept up the winding marble staircase to Crews' bedroom gun in hand. He was determined to put a bullet in Crews once and for all and end this nightmare that began when the man escaped a prison sentence meant to hold him for the rest of his natural born life. The door to the bedroom was open already and there propped against the cream color of his plush bedding was the pale man, holding Dani gently in his arms. She smiled in her sleep, looking like the angel she had as a child, before time and teens had turned his baby girl into a bad ass with an attitude.

Crews made her happy, he made her smile and it broke Jack's heart.

Not to see her happy, but that it had come to this – his daughter with the sum of all his fears, the man he'd tried to kill more than once and still meant to. She'd stopped him earlier; he'd spent hours convincing himself it was reflex not reality. Now he was forced to accept what everyone else around them knew, but they both stubbornly refused to acknowledge – his daughter and her partner were in love.

He stood staring at his daughter, she of dark looks and dangerous habits and her partner; he of fair features and unknowable secrets. They were dangerous, perhaps fatal to one another, but the attraction was clear. Dani loved his thinly veiled volatility under a veneer of three thousand dollar suits. He was a mystery to her and nothing was more attractive to his daughter than something (or someone) she wasn't supposed to have (or love).

Unlike most women Crews attracted, she was drawn to his darkness, his pain, the unfathomable depths of his season in hell – a path she knew well and tread often. Unlike the eye candy flavor of the week, leggy, vacuous women interested in him for $50 million little green reasons; she ached for his tortured soul. She'd always been that way, bringing home stricken strays and the hopelessly injured – didn't matter if it was a boy or beagle; his daughter was in love with pain – and it didn't much matter if it was hers or someone else's.

Crews was another story. Jack knew the man to be brutal, merciless and efficient in the dispensation of his own personal brand of pain and punishment. His twelve years inside were littered with a trail of broken men. People who'd crossed Charlie Crews lived to tell about it were rare. He escaped additional time by leaving invisible injuries – it was how he'd dispatched Nevikov. Jack wondered what interested Crews in Dani and if it was even her or if he was just using Dani to get to him.

Dani was such a happy child and a pretty girl, but she'd grown into such a tortured and twisted young woman. Life had been a cruel task master to his daughter, she'd endured much in her few years on the planet. Maybe Crews saw in her some kind of kindred soul, someone who had lived through the storm like he had. His daughter had seen many trials in her young life; she'd been bloodied, battered and broken, but she kept getting back up. It was one of few things he still respected about his daughter – she was a fighter. Dani Reese did not know the meaning of giving up, but was that what Crews wanted from her - or - was she simply a tool for a task.

The question gnawed at him as he examined how the man cradled and protected his daughter. You would think she was the one who was nearly killed tonight. Reese knew that Charlie Crews was vicious and unrepentant in defending what was his, whether it was his own body, his bunk or his friends. He would wondered if he'd defend Dani too; as she had defended him – stepped in front of a bullet for him.

Jack leveled the gun at Crews in the grey moonlight and shadows, exhaling smoothly. He could shoot him right here – right now. A lifetime of SWAT training made him secure in this knowledge he could easily end this and miss his daughter entirely. The bullet would miss her physically, but the shot would probably echo through eternity. To have lost one man in her arms was devastating enough, but to lose a second was probably unrecoverable. Jack Reese was a lot of thing, including a shitty father, but this he was not. He could not, would not do that to her, to Dani. So he lowered the gun and walked away.

Charlie Crews' demise would have to wait for another day. Truth be known, as much as he detested Crews for having the temerity to survive those twelve unearned years behind bars, he was not at all certain he could kill the man at all. Not after seeing the happiness he brought Dani, even though his failure might cost him his own life.


	5. Chapter 5

**CHAPTER FIVE - Firestorm**

_**The further you enter into the truth, the deeper it is. ~~ Bankei**_

The following morning, their mutual unfolding of limbs was so ungainly and strange that Dani bolted headlong into the problem ahead of them without thought. Her reckless abandon uncharacteristic for such a deep thinker, but nevertheless she plowed headfirst into another minefield; one imminently more preferable than her attraction to Crews, which she thinking of buying a bulldozer to bury.

"So…" she began over coffee, "how exactly do we get past my father trying to kill you?" She was so eager to overcome the colt like awkwardness of waking in her partner's arms, that she referenced Zen to distract him.

He eyed her skeptically before responding tersely, "We don't. I do."

She scowled at him.

"Don't look at me in that tone of voice Reese," he joked, "this is non-negotiable."

"Exactly how is you saying 'no' - negotiating?"

He stonewalled her with a blue-eyed wall of Zen ice.

"I think I should talk to him," she stiffly proposed.

"Out of the question," he held firm.

"He's my father," she objected as her bottom lip evidenced a pout she knew was Charlie's Achilles heel.

"He pointed a gun at you," he glowered his dissatisfaction with the danger to her.

"No," she remarked grinning, "he pointed a gun at you. I just happened to be there."

This he had no response to. She was right. The way he saw it there were two options in this problem, neither one of which he liked. The first was to kill Jack Reese for which she might never forgive him and the second was to sever his connection to her for which he might never forgive himself.

In the end she won the argument, as she did most.

Arranging the meeting proved to be more illusive than a snap shot of a Yeti as no one knew how to find Jack Reese. They had to wait for him to find them and that meant they returned to work.

Charlie stiffly and stubbornly continued his nightly solo forays into the truth. Slowly his stiffness eased and the wounds he bore healed. He was still sore, but functional when Dani shared she had a lead from a very improbable source – a young street kid, an informant named Ian, but who insisted on being called "Snake." She rolled her eyes as she told the story and shared the squirrely teenager's preferred moniker.

"I don't know who he thinks he is – some Mafia kingpin instead of a dirty little tweeker," she pronounced glumly. "But it's the first real lead we've had," she offered.

Charlie didn't share the promising nuggets he was unearthing on his evening adventures on the seedy streets of the Tenderloin District.

"It is the first lead we have isn't it Crews?" she questioned searching his eyes.

But Charlie was an expert liar; he gave nothing away. He simply shrugged and gave her a non-committal, "if you say so," in response. This annoyed her and she grabbed her coat and headed for the elevator. She seemed not to care if he came or not, but there was no way he was letting her go to that area of the city alone, at night. He caught her at the elevator – she glared at him and he grinned.

"If I insisted you call me Tiger would you?" he teased.

"Fuck off, Crews," she shot back staring straight ahead while the elevator made it's silent assent to the parking garage.


	6. Chapter 6

**CHAPTER SIX - Firestorm**

_**Nothing is more real than nothing. ~~ Samuel Beckett**_

The elevator opened into a damp, dark dream. They'd emerged into a deluge. Rain was coming down in buckets. The air was thick and crackling with static electricity. The sky was a pewter gray and water streamed down the concrete, darkening it to the color of mud. It served to darken Reese's already dour mood. The sun was setting, soon it would be dark and bad things happened in the dark.

It was raining the proverbial "cats and dogs" and although Charlie tried to restrain himself from asking precisely what that meant, he failed; brightly posing the question in the stifling humidity of their unmarked as the waited for the windows to clear enough to drive. "I don't understand why people say it's raining cats and dogs. What's that mean anyway?"

He issued forth the query to the universe at large and Dani Reese in specific, but the heated glare Reese shot at him made him immediately regret his request for clarification. "It just doesn't make sense to me," he offered under his breath in an almost apology. He gave her that much after this long.

She sighed relenting, "it doesn't make sense to anyone, Crews." She pinched the bridge of her nose as if her head hurt and eased back the annoyance a notch. She was trying not to be angry with him, but failing.

"Aren't you the one always telling me you don't have to understand here to be here?" It was her version of an almost apology, a peace offering – meeting him halfway. He could tell because she used to issues such comments through gritted teeth and now days she just shrugged off her annoyance and interacted with him because she had to. The days where she used to ignore him were in the past…mostly.

The rain eventually abated making the streets shine with neon even in the dirtiest part of town. The streets shimmered like black satin as they rolled down them bathed in the pink sodium lights. They rolled down the windows to smell the fresh clean air that LA had just after a deep cleansing rain and a light breeze lifted their collective moods as they waited in comfortable silence enjoying the evening.

Charlie pulled two ripe purple plums from his pocket, mutely offering one to his partner knowing she'd refuse; she always did. She shook him off – as usual and then did something curious. She asked him a question.

"Why do you always offer when I always refuse?"

"Just because something has always been does not mean it will always be," he commented thoughtfully. More Zen she figured.

"That doesn't make sense. Why on earth would you believe that?" she argued.

"I thought I would always be in prison, but here I am – free - eating plums, under the stars with a pretty girl in a car after a nice cleansing rain. I don't care if it makes sense, I just care that it is," he clarified.

She had no response to any of what he'd just said. She simply didn't know what to say to a man who'd been betrayed, defeated, had given up and yet some how – miraculously - was given a second chance at life, at freedom, at fruit. She didn't see the world the way he did "cleansing rains and pretty girls." She saw a wet, dirty street in bad part of town and an annoyed face staring back at her in the rearview.

Crews ate his plums quietly and she found herself wondering something else. She didn't want to ask him but simply couldn't restrain herself. "How did you manage to come out of there and still believe in anything?"

It was a serious question that deserved a serious answer, not some flippant Zen response. He turned in his seat and examined her. "I wasn't sure I did – believe in anything," he qualified, "for a long time. But there are some things that are there whether you believe in them or not."

"Pbbft," she expressed disbelief, disdain, maybe disgust all with the same non-verbals and non-committal exhalation of a non-word. Reese was the most unintentionally Zen being he knew. Even when she said nothing – she said a lot.

"Did you ever consider how you'd get through twelve years in a 8x10 foot box?" he asked her caustically. It was a rare moment of ire from a man who tried not to show the emotion – even though it often burned through him like white phosphorous.

"I wouldn't," she replied flatly. "I wouldn't have made it a year. I'd have killed myself."

"Why?" he spat as though the mere thought turned the taste in his mouth to bile. The images of Dani Reese trailing blood from wrists slit with a dull piece of jagged metal or hanging from a metal bunk bed by a bed sheet made him shiver in disgust. It was a mental image he could not shake. "Why would you do that?"

"I couldn't live in a cage, Crews. I don't even like the elevator," she explained dully. "How did you last so long?"

"I was innocent," he said simply, still in mild shock from her disclosure.

"That's the difference," she smiled knowingly, "I'm not innocent."

"Neither am I. Not anymore Reese, but I once was – and I think you were too," he walked on thin ice, "once."

"I can no longer remember a time when I was innocent," she said with no affect and it made him sad just to hear her confess it. He knew she once was and something, someone had destroyed that in her.


	7. Chapter 7

**CHAPTER SEVEN – Firestorm**

"_**The mind creates a chasm only the heart can cross." ~~ S. Levine**_

The informant was late. Informants were always late, but this little tweaker was notoriously bad about showing up at all. Dani Reese was fidgeting and getting more annoyed by the minute. Charlie Crews watched her obliquely noticing she was more nervous than she should be. It wasn't the informant making her edgy; it was him, it was them – what they could be, what they should be, but weren't – not yet.

"He'll be here," Crews assured her. "He'll be late, but he'll show."

"I don't like this," she gritted. "I hate this part of town. Two people just sitting in a car; we're so exposed. We might as well have cop painted on the side of the car," she argued. "I shoulda come alone," she blew out an angry breath.

"We both know there's not a chance in hell I'd let you come out here alone, at night," he pointedly disagreed. She shot him a dark look and he softened his position, "neither of us would let our partner go to a meet here alone. It's stupid. It's dangerous."

"Pbfttt," she exhaled a non-committal aggravated response.

"I wasn't saying you couldn't handle it," he offered apologetically.

"Like you even know what I can handle," she disagreed on principle. She then realized the conversation had just diverged into a wooded area way too close to where she lived and she shut him down entirely, "doesn't matter. Here comes the little dirt bag," she announced as the teenager slunk up the street keeping to the shadows.

Crews examined the informant. He was young, wiry, full of potential energy. His gait was a strut trying to portray a confidence he did not feel. He was maybe 19 charitably and his ears were pierced, as was his brow. He wore a dirty t-shirt and jeans. His scrawny arms were covered in very talented ink – whatever money he didn't smoke went into his skin. He was disaffected and yet someone still naïve. He reminded Charlie of Reese – a diffident covering stretched over a seething mass of insecurity and anger.

"How do you wanna play this?" he deferred to her experience and seniority.

"He'll be scared of you - so don't be too friendly," she coached, "and don't smile," she warned.

"Why?" he wondered flipping down the visor and looking at his smile. "I have a nice smile – friendly," he countered.

She slapped the visor shut, "no smiling," she dared him to defy her.

"I'll save all my smiles for you," he teased lightly. "Head's up – there's your boy," he didn't give her a chance to shut him down as the little meth head approached her window.

"Ian," she passed him a look.

"Snake," he announced. "Call me Snake, it's cooler."

Dani's eyebrows shot north as she suppressed a smile.

"Who's Wall Street?" Snake motioned to Charlie in his expensive suit.

"This is…Charlie," Dani sounded like she choked on his given name.

"Your dude?" She nodded and blushed.

"S'up Charlie?" Snake asked reaching his hand in the car.

As the boy leaned into Dani's side of the car, Crews leaned across the console to shake his hand. The boy meant it to look like a handshake, but not actually be one. Charlie clasped the boy's hand tightly and Snake pulled away, which put Crews off balance. He intended to brace his left hand against the center console, but missed and instead ended up with his hand squarely on Dani Reese's solid muscled thigh. It shocked them both, but neither reacted to keep from spooking the informant.

"What you have - better be good," Crews locked eyes and warned the boy. "Don't waste our time okay?" The boy nodded and Crews released him. Dani held her breath waiting for him to return to his own side of the car, but he didn't.

After a beat she continued and their meeting lasted a few brief minutes before Snake was once again slinking up the block in the shadows, but those minutes proved useful and instructive to both Detectives in more ways than one. The longer they sat that way the more attuned to their physical link each became. He could feel the tension of her thigh under his hand, the rough denim of her jeans and the sinew in her muscles moving each time she flexed her toes against the brake pedal. She could feel the warmth of his large hand seep into the muscle of her thigh. His hand covered her leg from the solidity of his palm to his long fingers dipping down along her inner thigh that could have been intimate were circumstances different.

Both could sense that the moment the source walked away there was going to be a reckoning, a reaction and it was going to be something they'd never covered at the Academy. She could imagine some wet behind the ears cadet sticking his or her hand in the air, "excuse me, suppose you end up in a compromising position with your partner who is hot - in a completely non- sexual, not attracted to you kinda way – what should you do?" She figured the answer would be a long silent stare and no advice. There was nothing in the manual for your partner putting his hand between your legs and leaving it there. She should slap him and push him away, instead of listening to her heart race and imagining his fingers gripping her thigh instead of just resting there. She nearly broke out in a sweat.

The teenager must have noticed something was amiss because as he finished what he was saying, he added insult to injury by noting, "ya'll make a cute couple," as a parting comment. He grinned and withdrew.

Crews waited a beat before pushed back and his lips twitched slightly as he focused on her face and expression of annoyance.

"We are not a couple," she exhaled angrily.

Crews said nothing, smoothing his suit with the hand that had recently been caressing her thigh. He cast her a sideways glance as she repeated the comment to reinforce the fact, "we are not a couple."

"I know that Reese," he said but his face wore a bemused smile.

"Shut up," she snapped at him, as she threw the car in gear and accelerated away from the embarrassment. "Did you have to do that?"

"I didn't mean to," he defended. He was not stupid enough to pretend he didn't know what she was upset about. "I'm sorry. If I got you excited…"

"What?" She shouted. "You… No, you did not just insinuate that…. That's it!" She pulled the car to the curb in the darkened city. "Get out," she snapped at him.

"Oh, no," he laughed. "You'll leave me out here. I'll get mugged. There's not a chance in hell I'm getting out of this car unless you do," he stubbornly refused her.

She unbuckled her belt and threw the door open. She was itching for a fight and she was going to have it. He exhaled and calmly climbed from the car unfolding his long limbs – she was wound up and he knew exactly why. Their sublimated sexual attraction had bubbled to the surface in the weeks following the incident in the orange grove and she was fighting her attraction to him like a cat fights a bath.

He'd noticed it when they'd assigned Seever to work with him. Not immediately, but eventually it permeated his thick skull as every dark hair woman her height drew his eye and his heart would race for a moment until he knew they were not her. He'd missed her in ways that he'd never expected, in ways he'd initially rejected until the look she gave him through the windshield in the orange grove melted the ice he'd encased his heart in.

He loved her, more than that he was in love with her and he had been for some time, far longer than he'd been willing to initially acknowledge or admit. It warmed him inside when he let it be – but it genuinely pissed Reese off.

Unfortunately, as she was learning, you cannot control who you love. Ask any woman who stayed with a man who beat her, ask couples that break apart only to reconnect time and again, unable to live together and equally incapable of being apart. He had no idea if they would be that way, but he knew they had a coupling coming and it was something she was fighting with every fiber of her being.

She barely tolerated him their first year together, the second they'd negotiated a safe, supportive partnership, the third she became that which he could not live without – that which he didn't want to. She was that one wave trying to fight the entire ocean. But a lifetime of fighting taught him that in any fight if you wait long enough - your opponent will tire – so he waited. She would tire, that's when he would make his move. Even if she knocked him into next week, he had to try.

She rounded the car and pushed him hard, "What the hell was that?" She demanded.

He said nothing and she advanced on him again, shoving him roughly and demanding answers he would not give. Reese was physical and since he was five and the girl next door pinned him to the ground under the jungle gym, he'd known that some women express affection and interest in this way. She wanted him as badly as he did her.

He closed the car door and when she was even with it he made his move. He advanced pinning her between the car and his strong body. His hands clasped the car roof on either side of her – she could get away if she really wanted to – but she didn't. She wanted him to take control and take them where they both needed to go.

"That was nothing," he growled. "But this? This is something - isn't it?" He was breathless from simply being that close to her. Her eyes were wide, but not in fear, not in anger; he excited her by his nearness.

"I don't know what you think this is," she shot back but her tone was quieter, more intimate. She was no longer shouting at him, her eyes disconnected and she tried to break contact to escape.

"No," he taunted, "You don't know. You have no idea," he pressed and her head snapped up her eyes dark with fury. She was so very fierce and fiery. His hand left the car and sunk to her cheek, stroking back her hair.

"Crews," she threatened weakly, then she licked her lips. There – that was his opening and he took it.

He descended on her sinking his fingers deep in her long cool tresses pulling her to him.

"If you have to shoot me after, shoot me, but there is no way I'm not gonna kiss you," he warned as he took her roughly. There was a moment of fight when she pushed against him before those hands grasped his shirt and pulled him into her. He sunk to the car and pinned her against it. His other hand left the car and found it's way to the small of her back pulling her against him as he deepened their kiss. They blazed white-hot and consumed all the oxygen for three blocks.

When the broke for air, neither could speak, he rested his forehead against hers and told her, "I'm not sorry, even if you shoot me I'll never be sorry," he vowed.

Shut up," she demanded twisting to capture his lips again. This kiss turned slow and languorous, then just as suddenly she pushed him away and returned to the car. She was still buckling herself in and trying to remember precisely when her shirt got unbuttoned to her waist when she shouted at him, "Crews – you coming?"

He grinned but let the easy cheap, seductive response slide by. He was a disciplined batter; he would not trash talk and chatter. He would wait for his pitch and knock it out of the park. Right now Dani Reese had called a "time out" and he let her have it.

"Are we gonna talk about..." he tested.

"No," she snapped. "Nothing happened, just forget it," she ordered harshly.

He showed his frustration by slamming his head into the headrest. He wanted to tell her "you can forget nothing," but knew nothing good could come of that. He instead retreated into sullen silence. He didn't touch her again, not in the car where he wanted to hold her hand against his chest so she could feel his heart hammering wildly for her; not on the walk back to the elevator where he envisioned pinning her to a concrete pylon and kissing her breathless; and definitely not in the elevator where he wanted to pull the stop button and freeze time with just the two of them exploring one another in the dark.

Only when she announced that she was going home and the elevator door closed behind her did he release the breath he'd been holding and shook his head ruefully. "Well," he spoke to the universe at large, "at least she didn't shoot me." This was going to be unimaginably difficult, maybe impossible – but Charlie Crews specialized in the impossible.


	8. Chapter 8

**CHAPTER EIGHT - Firestorm**

_**Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. ~~N. Bonaparte**_

Charlie left the station, but he couldn't go home. Reese's soft lips and the feeling of her hot little tongue behind his teeth still inhabited corners of his brain. _Damn his lack of impulse control – this was only making things worse_. She was the wiser of the two and she pushed him away like a magnet actively repelling it's mate. But switch the polarity on magnets and they became closer than skin and silk. _How did one switch someone's polarity? Should he change or should she? If they did change, would they still want each other in the desperate way that he wanted her now? _

He was walking but not thinking in a bad section of town when trouble found him again. Jack Reese stepped from behind a darkened alcove and leveled a gun at him.

"This time my daughter's not here to save your ass Crews," he laughed.

"Just tell me why," Charlie answered, hopelessly behind the power curve in both reaction and understanding. "Why do you hate me? Why are you so determined to kill me?"

The man sighed heavily, "Why does it matter? In ten seconds you'll be dead."

"I'm in love with your daughter," Crews confessed his sins. If he was going to meet his maker, he might as well unburden himself.

"Exact wrong thing to say," Jack snapped as he violently pistol-whipped Charlie.

Crews fell to the ground unconscious, just as a group of teenage boys rounded the corner.

"Hey," one of the shouted. Jack turned and fled.

The boys approached the unconscious man and poked him with their sneakered feet to make sure he was out cold. They made no effort to help him. They bent over Crews prone form and began rifling through his pockets and taking everything valuable they could find. They rolled him over and found his shield staring up at them.

"Shit," one of them exclaimed leaping back like he'd been bit, "he's a cop." They ran like scalded dogs, all but one of them – a young tweeker who recognized the unconscious red haired man. He pulled a cell phone from deep in his low-slung pants pocket.

"Dani?" he questioned quietly. His troubled voice came to her sleepy brain over a mile of slack line. He was in trouble; she knew it. "It's Ian," he was so scared he used his real name. "Uh, your guy? Wall Street? He's down here," he stammered.

"Charlie?" she yelped suddenly jolted awake by fear and concern.

"Yeah, that's right Charlie," the boy replied as synapses fired and her partner's name came back to him vaguely. He only remembered Dani's name because she was hot. "He's…uh…he's hurt bad. You want me to call the cops or something?"

For some reason she could not explain the word "no" erupted from her lips unexpectedly. Maybe because the idea of him suffering appealed to her in some sadistic way, or maybe because she knew that Charlie Crews was in the city hunting and what he was hunting for had found him.

"Is he bleeding?" she asked considering why she'd just deprived her partner of much needed medical care. Crews needed a full time babysitter, a nurse and a good ass whipping (from her).

"Yeah," the boy said. "But he's out cold."

"If he's bleeding, he's alive," she gritted out angrily. "Stay there I can be there in ten," she demanded. The phone line was vacant for a moment as she grabbed her informant by the throat using just her voice and willed him to stay with the iron in her tone, "Ian – don't you leave him."

The boy gave a shy, scared, "Um..'ok," and terminated the call. She hunted for her pants cursing Charlie Crews the entire time. _God damn him, if he wasn't dead when she got there – she was gonna kill him herself._

By the time she skidded to a stop at the curb, her headlights lit a very wobbly but upright and conscious Charlie Crews trying to shake off the assistance of his rescuer. Blood had dried in a line down the side of his face where he'd taken yet another blow to his unimaginably hard head. Ian waved shyly and stepped away and Crews nearly fell over. _Great,_ she thought. _That's just fuckin' great!_

She scrubbed her face and steeled herself for yet another confrontation with the man who was driving slowly insane in one manner or another every single day. If he wasn't staring at her with impossibly blue eyes, he was getting on her nerves, under her skin, invading her space, her mind and then there were times like this when he made her worry so bad she wanted to ring his neck.

He squinted into the bright halogen headlamps and held his hand aloft to block out the beam of light and see into the car in vain. He couldn't see her, but he knew she'd be mad. He didn't have to open his eyes for that part. Reese lived in angry red strokes – this would not help.

She pushed the door open and the heat of her anger preceded her shimmering in the air like a mirage on a hot highway. Crews looked down either in pain or embarrassment, she wasn't sure which.

Ian retreated another step and stammered an apology, "sorry, they didn't know he was a cop when they took his shit. I got these back," he offered the badge and a 38 caliber pistol, which she knew was not Crews' service weapon. From it she deduced he'd been down here on personal business, hunting off the reservation – so to speak. Then she noticed the badge was not his gold detective's shield, it was the dull nickel color of a patrol badge and she got even angrier and more resolute.

Dani's smile looked more like a grimace as she approached Ian and gently took the gun and the badge from the scared kid. She wasn't sure if it was the situation or her that was scaring the kid, so she took a moment to school her features after to locking both offending items in her trunk. She might never give either of them back.

"I don't know how it happened," Ian continuing to talk uncontrollably, "we just came around the corner and he was laid out in the street with some old white haired guy standing over him."

Dani's eyes widened, but she resisted the impulse to wheel and lay into her partner. She touched the boy's sleeve and he flinched. "Shhh, it's okay," she coached softly. "You did good, Snake."

Her deliberate use of his preferred street moniker made the boy smile, "thanks," he smiled shyly. "I can try to get his stuff back…" he offered helpfully.

"Don't bother," she said darkly, turning to look at her bloodied partner still seated on the stoop with his head in his hands. "Wall Street here can afford to buy more 'stuff'," she said coolly again invoking Charlie's Zen as a deliberate dig. He didn't miss it and groaned softly in disgust.

Dani reached into her pocket and gave the boy the $40 in her pocket, "go get a good meal and sleep in a bed, Snake. Don't spend this on drugs," she held the cash tightly until his eyes met hers and he nodded. She impulsively hugged him, tousled his hair and whispered her thanks, resulting in him smiling impishly before he scampered up the street away from her and what he knew was going to be a domestic disturbance.

Ian ran away from home because his mom and dad were constantly quarrelling and he knew when a couple was about to throw down. This one was going to be ugly and he wanted no part of it. He laughed as he realized the beat down Wall Street got was going to look mild compared to the tongue lashing the red haired man was going to get from his girlfriend. Snake wondered why little women are so tough and fierce; it was a question he never figured out the answer to.


	9. Chapter 9

**CHAPTER NINE – Firestorm**

_**No matter how fast a man is –**_

_**he cannot out run his shadow. ~~ African proverb**_

"So did you kill him?" the smarmy voice asked, knowing he hadn't. If Jack had accomplished his task his face would look different, not happy, but perhaps relieved.

"No," Reese said snapping word like it was a dry twig.

"You know the situation," the man explained from his high horse. "Crews has you. If he gets you, then he can get to us. Crews is all that stands between you and returning to a leisurely life of retirement and working on your handicap."

"I know," Jack shouted. "Don't you think I know? I want to go home – be with my wife, live in the house I built, not slink around like a criminal on the run. A criminal pursued by only one cop," he added sarcastically.

"Two," the man reminded.

Jack's eyes narrowed and he knew where this was headed. Somehow they knew – about Crews and his daughter. They knew or they had expected it.

"It would seem your daughter has joined in her partner's crusade," the man taunted. "That must sting, Jack," he had fun with the elder Reese's discomfort, "your little girl – the one who idolized you growing up – now hunting you like a common thief with the man you put in jail for a murder he didn't commit."

Reese sighed and ran a hand through his thick white hair. "This would be easier if I could get some help," Reese suggested.

"Out of the question," the man shut the door. "This thing with Rayborn left us exposed. We cannot be involved. You must do this alone. Think of it as the price of your ticket home," the man tempted.

"And what if I can't do it?" Reese dared.

"Then you may find yourself dead, Jack. We can't afford loose ends. Either you are with us or you are a liability. And you of all people know how we deal with liabilities," the man's voice grated on his every nerve. Jack's anger showed clearly on his face as unconcealed hatred.

"Do this one thing and you'll be taken care of. You, your family – even your daughter – you will all be protected," the man baited the trap.

"That's what you said about the Seybolt thing," Jack reminded.

"Yes, well if you and Carl Ames had done that properly - Crews would still be in prison wouldn't he?" The man let their failure set uncomfortably for a moment and then darkened things a little, "and we all know what happened to Carl when he got sentimental about Crews don't we?"

"Yeah, he ended up with a bullet in the head," Reese repeated what they all knew.

"Inside the LAPD parking garage, in a case that remains unsolved to this day," the man let the insinuation set in. They could kill any one; anywhere and no one could touch them.

"Why not do the same to Crews?" Jack demanded. "Why involve me?"

"We find we need proof of your loyalty Jack," the man studiously examined his nails. "And really, it's you or him," the voice laid out the stakes in the clearest terms. "Every night he's out there looking for you. He's close and when he finds you this time – I don't think even his affection for your daughter is going to keep him from hauling you in to jail. We won't let that happen Jack."

"You'll kill me first," Jack reinforced his understanding of things.

"You understand your dilemma completely," the man dismissed him. "Time is short. Deal with Crews soon or the next time you visit with your family will be at your funeral."


	10. Chapter 10

**CHAPTER TEN – Firestorm**

_**Losing an illusion makes you wiser than finding a truth. ~~ Ludwig Borne**_

"Get up," she demanded. When he didn't move she grabbed an arm and pulled.

He stubbornly refused to rise and was mute as he had been through the entire exchange between her and the boy. He was uncharacteristically quiet. She tugged again and he pulled back. He was much stronger than he looked; she ended up sitting beside him in an instant, having to quickly scramble to keep from ending up in his lap.

She wrested away from him, "let go of me," she snapped.

"Just who grabbed who?" he said darkly casting a pained look her way.

She scowled ferociously at him.

"I'm not ready to get up yet," he said admitting weakness – something Charlie Crews never did.

"That's it. I'm taking you to the hospital," she issued an edict that brooked no argument.

"And you're gonna explain this to Tidwell how?" he countered.

"You're hurt, Crews. Concussed minimum," hostility laced her tone, but her eyes held veiled concern.

"I've been hit harder, hurt worse," he interjected looking as though his very teeth and hair hurt.

"Yes, we're all aware of how terribly invincible and invulnerable the mighty Charlie Crews is," venom again dripped from her lips like acid on his skin. She looked at him as if she hated him. "Just what the hell am I supposed to do?"

"Help me up," he offered, "then go home," he added limiting what help he'd accept.

"I won't leave you," she stated emphatically.

"Isn't that what you did earlier tonight?"

She turned and looked hard at him. "You aren't honestly going to compare that to this," her eyes were narrowed and she looked genuinely pissed off. He looked at her – through her and she had to look away, "that was different," she replied softly.

"Not to me," he grumbled.

"Is that why you came down here? Did you…did you come down here looking for trouble? Carrying a gun that isn't yours and a badge that…. I don't even want to know where you got that badge from, but it's not yours," she exhaled a frustrated sigh.

"It is my gun and my badge," he stubbornly argued, "from before."

She stared at him in her patented non-verbal way of demanding more.

"Stark got them… somehow. He gave them back to me. They're mine and now I use them when I'm doing things…" he explained dully.

"What things? You mean those things YOU THINK I don't know about? Those things that could get you killed?" She shouted, sighed and then looked at the heavens as if the moon might grant her the answers he always sought in the sun. The rain left a crystal clear dark sky with just a sliver of a new moon, high in it's arc. There was symmetry to their actions, something they both noticed.

A moment passed and she added less insistently, "You're driving me insane you know? This was a dumb move, Charlie."

He noticed her deliberate use of his given name, but ignored it and chuckled. "Yeah, well, the settlement didn't require an intelligence test, just said I could be a cop again. Didn't say I'd be a good one," he sounded dour and disappointed. They teetered again on the edge of the knife's edge they walked on often.

She reached out her hand, reconsidered, withdrew and then swallowed hard and continued her move. She reached into his lap and pulled one of his large pale hands into hers. The act of holding hands was at once an intensely personal and intimate gesture. It was also the best she was capable of at this point. She wove her small tanned digits between his long lean white fingers and caressed the back of his hands with her other hand.

"I'm here you know? It might be not be what you want, the way you want, what you think you need, but I'm here – for you," she explained quietly.

"I know, honey," he said softly as he pulled her against his side and rested his chin on her head, "I know." He looked down to see her reaction to his slip, but she continued to weave their hands together and she seemed not to notice.

"Help me up, Reese," he leaned on her accepting her offer of help. "Let's go home. Shit," he swore softly after patting his pockets on the way to the car.

"What?"

"They took my knife," he seemed annoyed.

"They also took your watch, wallet and a boat load of cash, but it figures that knife would be the only thing you'd miss," she chuckled merrily enjoying his loss and discomfort.

"I was not attached to that knife," he recited one of his mantras.

"Bullshit," she laughed and started the car.

They'd avoided death yet again, but things were getting dire with her father. Ever since she'd figured out his part in Charlie's incarceration and confronted her father with that knowledge - things had gotten progressively worse. First he'd vanished and as bad as that was; it was worse when her father had returned.

It seemed he'd only returned to haunt them both and he seemed determined to kill Crews if only to erase the living proof of his sins all those years ago. She had no idea why now, but it had come to this. This was her fault, she'd pushed her father, provoked him and she had to fix it. _She was far too 'attached' to Crews to lose him, _she thought in terms of Zen again – _damn him_.

"Where's your car?" she wondered.

"It's parked near the Staples Center. I took the metro – blue line. I'm not a complete idiot," he grimaced easing himself into the confines of her small car.

"All evidence to the contrary," she shot back merrily. Now that she was certain he wasn't going to die, she wasn't as concerned or as angry. "There's a Lakers game tonight so it'll be staying there. So where do you want to sleep - your house or my couch?" she inquired.

"Just drop me at the train station and I'll get home from there," he directed.

"Uh…no," she decided. He shot her a dark look, which she completely ignored, "two blows to the head inside ten days? You get an MRI or you get a babysitter – take your pick," she gave him his limited options.

"My bed is big enough for both of us," he said yawning.

"What makes you think I have any intention of sleeping with you?" she snapped caustically. She glanced at him, narrowing her eyes at his yawn. Sleepiness is a hallmark sign of a head injury.

"I'm fine I just haven't been sleeping well," he sheepishly admitted waving her concern off. "And I didn't mean like that," he pouted, then quietly added, "I meant like the other night."

"You really think we can go back to that after what you did tonight?"

He returned a blank stare like he had no recollection of a kiss that ranked in her top five, maybe her top two. She rolled her eyes and reminded him, "You kissed me remember?"

"I remember that, but then I remember you kissing me back," he offered plainly.

She blushed six shades of red. She had. She remembered pulling his pale features to her and drinking from those lips that looked eternally chapped. She remembered feeling the coolness of his Zen exterior dissipate against the fierceness of their heat and knowing in that moment that each of them was the respite the other needed. She wouldn't take it – she refused it, she didn't think she deserved it – but oh, how she wanted it – and him.

"That…that was a mistake, an error in judgment, a one time thing that we will never do again. You hear me Crews – NEVER." There was defiance in her voice and steel in her tone. She meant it.

"Why not?"

She growled at him and he found he rather liked the sound.

"It's against regs," she gave him the easy answer, the kind one.

"Dating Tidwell was against regs, but you did that," he countered refusing to give up on them. "What makes this any different?"

"What makes…." She slammed on the brakes bringing the car to halt. She stared at him and opened her mouth to speak several times but the words would not come, so she snapped her mouth shut and stared out the window. Minutes passed and he watched her struggle with an answer, one that would end the discussion, but not their partnership and the important link that strengthened with each minute they spent together.

Finally, her voice cut through the stillness, quiet but strong, "Tidwell was different… because I could never feel anything real for him. It was just sex," she admitted. "He was nice, but there was no danger of getting lost in someone I could never love," she laid her heart bare.

His hope soared at her disclosure. Hope is however, a dangerous thing, just as hollow as fear and just as dangerous, but he just had to know in the way people have to know things so he pushed, "Could you love me Dani?"

She did not answer him; she simply pulled back into traffic and ignored him.

There was nothing but silence for a long while. It gave him time to appreciate all the noises he would have missed if he weren't listening so intently for her to say something, anything. He'd even settled for one of her frustrated sighs, but she gripped the wheel stared straight ahead and gave him nothing. He heard the rhythmic sound of the wheels on the pavement as the sped through the dark with each section of highway thumping under the car like a metronome. He heard the clicking of the blinker each time she signaled a lane change or once they left the highway on the side streets as the approached his home.

They parked the car in his drive and sat. She made no effort to move, nor did he.

She exhaled and rotated her head so that she was staring at the headliner. Slowly she closed her eyes and could feel herself teeter on the brink of something dangerous. That's how it always was with them – one second away from mutually assured destruction. Maybe that was what drew her to him.

"Reese," he reminded careful not to touch her except with his voice, which was soothing, sure and strong.

"Yes," she whispered. "Okay? Yes. Now can we just drop this?"

He nodded and then realizing she couldn't hear or appreciate his answer added, "let's go inside," softly. For a moment he thought she'd leave, run away but she didn't – she climbed from the car and his heart unclenched as he realized she would never leave him. Not like that. She might never love him, but she'd never leave him either.


	11. Chapter 11

**CHAPTER ELEVEN – Firestorm**

_**Nobody can go back and start a new beginning,**_

_**but anyone can start today and make a new ending.**_

_**~~ M. Robinson**_

Dani tried to ignore the powerful pull of the idea of them; the luxury of fading into her partner's arms for another night. She was so tired - of fighting, of swimming upstream and battling something as strong as the pull of the ocean's tides. The only tool she had was anger. It was the shield she held up against him.

"I'll be down here on the couch," she remarked dryly. "Yell if you need something."

He looked dully at her; "I thought we…" he stalled and looked awkwardly from the long curling stairs, which led to the bliss of his waiting bed and back to the angry woman tapping her foot in his foyer. No matter how badly he wanted this day to be over, he didn't want it to end with her down here and him up there.

"Oh, so now it's 'WE'," she argued. "When my father put you on the pavement back there - were 'WE' then Crews?" she browbeat him. "You're lucky he didn't shoot you," she glowered.

"How'd you know it was him?" Crews weakly argued not the point but the avenue for her knowledge. It let her know she'd already won. He didn't have the strength to fight her anymore.

"Snake said it was – and I quote," she made quotation marks in the air, "an old white haired dude. Now who else is that gonna be really, unless you're gonna make it a habit of getting thrashed by senior citizens, Crews?"

He sighed and admitted his failing, "He pistol whipped me. Hurt like hell," he added as quiet afterthought. "Still does," he rubbed his temple.

"Why didn't he shoot you?" she asked.

"You sound like you wish he did," Charlie replied letting pain seep into his voice.

"I…" she started, then stopped. He looked at her expectantly not at all sure what she'd say. "I don't wish that." Her admission was soft and gentle, "you're bleeding again." She reached for him and he brushed her off.

"Dammit, Charlie," she swore softly at him and tried again. "You want me to care about you and then when I do – you won't let me. Give me a break here," she stared up at him and her face was open. It reflected concern tinged with annoyance.

He eased onto a barstool in his kitchen and begrudgingly letting her look at his head. Her flexible little fingers manipulated his jaw but it was not rough, her touch was light and gentle. She probed the edges of his wound, her touch feather light and fingers nimble. "You need stitches," she pronounced. He grimaced and she quickly qualified, "you should get stitches but I think I can fix this so it will stop bleeding." This earned her an appreciative smile.

He sat at his kitchen island with every bandage, ointment and first aid accoutrement he owned. Ever since Ted put a pencil through his hand in one of California's many earthquakes, they had a prodigious amount of first aid supplies stocked in the house.

"What are you gonna do open and AIDS clinic?" Dani joked as she worked on his head under the strong light from the kitchen.

"Ted," he rolled his eyes, "Oww…" he winced.

"Don't be a baby," she chastised. She stepped between his legs to better access the area she was working on. "You really should get stitches," she commented. He shook his head. "Stop moving," she hissed getting rougher with him.

His sharp intake of air let her know she'd hurt him a fraction of a second before his eyes slammed shut and his hands gripped her hips tightly. They both froze and room temperature shot up meteorically.

"Breathe," she whispered without a hint of joking in her voice.

He opened one eye expecting to see her wry grin, but what he saw was concern. He felt her hands move over his shoulders urging him to relax. He opened the other eye and gazed up at her as she realized the compromising nature of their position. He braced himself for her rapid departure, but instead her hand strayed to his face, her thumb brushing his lower lip and she sank to kiss it tenderly.

He concentrated only on the sensation of Dani Reese kissing him; his pain fell away, forgotten. Slowly her tongue traced his upper lip and his lips parted as she swept into his mouth tasting of chocolate and coffee. The first time they'd kissed he didn't have time to appreciate the sweetness of her. This time he reveled in it. He gripped her more tightly and in moments he could feel her rock against his groin realizing he'd her drawn her tightly against him.

She withdrew as their collective need had gotten the better of them both and asked him in a hushed tone, "better?"

"Please tell me you didn't do that just because you hurt me," he said breathlessly.

"We've got a real problem here, Crews." She forewarned. "We are no good for each other and it's a well known fact that I can't resist things that are bad for me," she admitted honestly.

"Stay here?" he asked cautiously.

"Okay," she acquiesced, "but no touching." He crossed his heart with her finger and then kissed it. He moved to rise, but she wasn't done with him yet. She wove her nimble fingers into the short hair at the back of his neck.

"You won't go out there again without me Crews," she demanded. "You swear to me that you won't go after him without me," she wrung a vow from him. He nodded. "Say the words," she commanded and he was helpless to disobey. He never wanted this woman more than an arms length away from him for the rest of his life.

"I won't go anywhere without you," he vowed looking in her dark eyes, "I promise."

"Good," she decided. "Let's go to bed," she drew him with her as she walked toward the stairs, "to sleep," she qualified, knowing he was wearing a Cheshire cat grin.

They settled into his huge bed, on opposite sides, separated by a wide expanse of white and lay very still for several moments but sleep would not come. He cleared his throat and shyly asked for her hand.

She rolled to face him, "why?"

"Sometimes I forget where I am," he admitted, "If I wake up and don't remember…I don't want to hurt you," was his embarrassed reply.

She understood immediately and didn't question. She scooted closer and reached her hand out to him. He lay on his back with her hand on his chest clasped in his. She could feel the strong rhythmic beat of his heart through rumble through him.

They fell fast asleep like that linked but barely touching, but when she woke they were wrapped in the other's embrace. Her first impulse was to push him away and tell him he was a _damned liar_. She even grumbled, "no touching - my ass," until she realized he hadn't moved - she had.

In her sleep she'd gravitated to his side and he'd simply slung an arm over her and gathered her to his chest. He still held her hand under his tenderly cradling her in the hollow of his chest protectively, while her legs were intertwined with his and her arm traversed his waist with her hand low on his back near his butt. _Sweet Jesus_ she thought, she couldn't seem to stay out of this man's arms.

She shifted to rise but he held her tightly grumbling in his sleep. His pale face was inches from hers. She withdrew her arm and placed her hand there, again thumbing his battered bottom lip again before lightly kissing him. "Dani," he sighed in his sleep contentedly. They had a big problem; she was pretty sure he loved her as he'd said and she was pretty sure the feeling was mutual.


	12. Chapter 12

**CHAPTER TWELVE – Firestorm**

_**Things are always changing, so nothing can be yours. ~~ S. Suzuki**_

They were having coffee when she directed them back down the path they were on the night prior. He offered her half of his mango as her thinly veiled disdain hid behind a polite smile and shake of her head.

"I need you to explain to me why he didn't shoot you," she offered as she buttered her half of their shared bagel, passing him the other. It was so benignly domestic and yet comfortable that it irked her.

He poured her coffee and looked hard at her, "Are you sure you wanna know?"

She nodded as she stirred in cream and sugar and glared at him.

"Something I said stopped him, but it isn't what you think," he smiled. "It isn't some dark secret that I'm holding over his head," Charlie admitted.

"I'd settle for the plain and simple truth. That'd be refreshing," she wondered acerbically. While some things were changing, her gift for sarcasm and curiosity getting the better of her were not.

He gave her one more chance to back down, knowing she wouldn't. Dani Reese never backed away from anything in her life. "Think hard because it's not something you can un-know," he gave her the choice framed differently.

She rolled her eyes at him. He knew Reese could not be content to _not know_ anything, but he made her ask for it again anyway.

"What?" she barked.

"Quiet," he hissed, "man with a head injury" he said pointing at himself.

She didn't look even mildly concerned, "Give it up Crews. Tell me what you said to him that kept him from shooting you or I'm gonna shoot you myself," she insisted.

He carefully watched her as he said the words again, "I told him I was in love with you," he delivered the message quietly but with great sincerity.

"What?" she couldn't help her expression of surprise. She shook her head and pretended not to hear, not to accept the words he couldn't contain. Maybe she didn't want to hear or didn't want to know, and then when he pursed his lips to repeat the powerful words she stopped him.

"I heard you," she came clean, "it's just not what I expected," her reply was patient, measured and thoughtful. "Did he believe you?"

"Don't know and it doesn't matter," Crews strode fully into battle armed with just his profession of love, "all that matters is that you believe me. Dani," his voice thick with emotion, "you do believe me don't you?"

She shushed him and the silence returned. They stood in his great marble house listening to the silence. He was sure he could hear her heartbeat and the blood pulse through her veins. They were in the same space, even the same moment, touching the same tender emotion but worlds apart on how to deal with it.

"We're late. We should go," he was beyond embarrassed and just wanted to forget that he loved another woman who couldn't or wouldn't love him.

"I believe you," she said in a small, clear voice, "but that doesn't make this any easier," she returned to business.

He stopped her; grasping both her arms in his hands and turning her to face him. "I know all I seem to be doing is chasing, but I need you to tell me what you want."

She considered him with all his cuts, bruises, scabs and those impossibly blue eyes staring at her in his three thousand dollar suit. Her sullied and stained Zen warrior, looking unsure for the first time since she'd known him. She leaned very close, to whisper her answer, but cell phone rang interrupting them.

He groaned audibly. She smirked and canted the phone toward him. "Blocked caller," they read simultaneously. She answered it in her usual terse manner with just her last name, one he both loved and loathed for two very different reasons.

"Dani," came the familiar voice down the line, "it's your father."

A look passed between the young woman and her partner. It was quiet enough in the house that he heard every word Jack Reese spoke. "I know he's with you, but I want to talk to you - alone. I have some things that need to be said."

"I can meet you, but you need to understand that I intend to bring you in," she warned. "You have things to answer for…so many things… Dad."

"I'll come in on my own soon enough, but can you give your old man a half an hour - without your guard dog?"

Charlie frowned and shook his head.

So naturally, she told him yes, covering Charlie's offered objection with her palm. "I'll meet you at the park where I played Little League and I'll come alone," the last part of her statement was directed at the tall red haired man now scowling at her.

She snapped the phone shut.

Crews pulled her hand from his lips and disagreed strongly, "No."

Dani sighed and stepped close to him. "He won't hurt me and I might learn something useful." She smiled at him, "Trust me, Crews."

"I do trust you, honey. It's him I don't trust," he countered.

She arched a brow at his affectation but let the comment go, "I'm going and you're going to wait for me at work."

* * *

><p>They cruised into the cool quiet darkness of the parking garage, she slowed to drop him and he leaned across to kiss her, but she stiff-armed him.<p>

"What do you think you're doing? We are not a couple," she protested.

"What ever you say…" he started.

"Stop placating me and don't you fucking call me honey again, Crews," she insisted testily.

He sighed and looked at his hands in his lap, before climbing from the car. Her tenseness and anger came from nerves, ones she'd never admit, but felt nonetheless. Her father scared her. Charlie backed off – it the agonizing game of one-step forward, two steps back with Reese. One minute she'd kiss him breathless and the next pretend like she didn't know him.

Now was not the time to force things, but they were headed for a reckoning soon. A time when they could no longer hide what was between them and then he might lose her forever, but they could not go back – they could only go forward.

"Be careful?" he asked as he leaned back in before closing the door. "I worry about you," he explained.

"Just who's been beat up, run over and injured twice this week? Because I don't think it's me," she defended. "I think you should spend more time worrying about yourself and less time worrying about me. I can handle my father," she said sure of herself.

"Okay, Reese," he relented sighing heavily. "Call me when it's over?" He tried to get some kind of commitment from her.

She rolled her eyes and groaned, "Honestly? What are you my mother?"

For some reason he couldn't explain that pissed him off. He felt a flood of anger and reacted reaching across the car, he switched the engine off and took her keys. "What the hell?" she protested.

"Get out of the car," he commanded through clenched teeth. He rounded the car and she slammed her door angrily. "Quite screwing around," she barked at him.

"I am not your mother. I am not your boyfriend. I am not one of those men you pick up in bars and use for the night. Don't you blow me off," he fiercely advanced on her, "and don't you dare try to make me feel guilty for caring about you," he blustered as he backed her against the car.

"You make me crazy," he admitted grabbing the car on either side of her – and here they were again. The air around them crackled with electricity, with possibility and he knew it would never be roses and candy and lingerie with them. It would always be this – battle of wills, of needs, of desires – always that magnetic push/pull and he loved the exhilaration as much as he dreaded the dénouement. He leaned close intent on kissing her, knowing she'd reject him. She did not disappoint.

She planted both hands squarely in his chest, "Don't you dare kiss me here," she warned.

_Interesting _he thought, _not don't kiss me – don't kiss me here_, but he was tired of waiting for her permission she was never going to give him.

"I'll kiss you when and where I want to," he powered through her objections and captured her waiting lips. For while her hands signaled resistance, her lips welcomed him, as she pulled him into her wrestling for dominance. He crushed her body against his clutching her to his chest.

It was not a pretty kiss, not fairy tale light and tender. It was full of fire and fight and longing laced with danger in a setting they should not be expressing even the mildest of affections in, but he wanted to strip her bare and run his hands all over her on the hood of that car. He wanted her screaming his name and carving her initials in his back with her short nails. His hands were in her hair; her's pulled on his tie so hard he thought she might suffocate him. But she was pulling him closer; not pushing him away and that meant something.

They broke when he released her, but her lips held his a fraction of a second longer letting him know she was hungry from him too. She breathed heavily against his chest, "you bastard."

He tipped her chin up, "Call me when it's over." It was not a request this time. It was a demand. She shook her head.

"Dani," he beckoned, holding her keys out of reach, "you will be careful and you will come back - to me." He waited until she nodded before he dropped the keys into her hands.

She angrily climbed back into the car and shot out of the garage. She stopped at the exit where the sun met shadow to collect her thoughts. She looked at herself in the mirror. She couldn't meet her father like this; she frowned and adjusted her lipstick. Her hair was mused and her lipstick smeared; she looked like someone who'd been just been soundly kissed.

_Damn him_, she thought, _why did he have to be such a damned good kisser_. It made her imagine other things he could do with those lips and hands that she could still feel on her. When he seized control, she seemed incapable of resisting him – truth be known she didn't want to. She swore softly realizing she was hooked on him. Like a seductive new thrill, a new drug or a long, cold one; she was addicted to the drug that was Charlie Crews - and he knew it.


	13. Chapter 13

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN – Firestorm**

_**The way is not in the sky; the way is in your heart. ~~ Buddha**_

She arranged the meeting and he couldn't go. While it made sense - as his presence would strain an already tense atmosphere to the breaking point, he worried more than he thought possible in the 90 plus minutes she was gone. She stood like a tiny white flag of truce between two warring nations; a small tree in the vastness of the Gaza Strip of their own personal war. He hated it in a way he thought he'd given up hating things.

He chewed his nails and then looked at his hands in disgust and sat atop the conference table and meditated.

Tidwell looked at the tall detective perched atop the conference table and knew something was amiss.

"Detective Crews?" continuing only after Crews opened his eyes. "Where's Detective Reese?"

"Out," was Charlie's cryptic non-answer.

"Cut the shit, Crews," Tidwell asserted in his most commanding voice. "Where's your partner?" Tidwell made it clear to Crews he was asking a work related question and delving into their personal lives.

"Talking with her father," he admitted knowing the man's concern was genuine.

Just as they'd never talked about Tidwell dating Reese; they'd never talked about Tidwell not dating Reese. It still bothered both of them making the atmosphere of any room they were in together bristle with excess testosterone and bravado. They put up with the chaffing and rubbing because of their mutual concern for a particularly, testy and difficult young woman.

"And that's led you to the top of my conference room table because?" Tidwell inquired with the unfulfilled comment hanging in the air between them.

Crews considered the man like a dog hearing an odd noise, his head cocked to the side. Tidwell shared his affection for Reese and for a time - shared her bed, a fact that irked him. But he'd been an ally when the chips were down; he deserved an explanation, "because Jack Reese is not a good man."

"And you're worried about her?" Tidwell queried.

"And I'm worried – not about her. She's solid. It's him I don't trust."

"You think he'd hurt his own kid?"

Charlie returned a quizzical look, but said nothing.

"So who beat you up?" Tidwell inquired, "cause I don't remember seeing any official record of a scuffle in any of your reports."

Charlie scowled and Tidwell stared. He was after all Charlie's boss and had made this clear on many occasions, so he gave the man the truth, "Dani's father." Tidwell winced. "Yeah, tell me about it," Charlie commented dryly.

"Fix your tie," Tidwell gestured at his neck. "It looks like someone tried to strangle you with it," he remarked absently with no idea how close to the mark his comment was.

Charlie still felt mildly lightheaded when he considered the pull his diminutive partner had exerted on that little piece of silk. He considered having talk with her about the tensile strength of silk and how wrapping her hands around his throat would be a faster way to choke him, but he considered she'd already thought of that option.

"Crews? You with us?" Tidwell seemed to notice the lanky red head's preoccupation, "I asked you if we can we back her up?"

Charlie Crews then returned a Dani Reese patented eye roll.

The Captain realized the two had been partnered long enough that their mannerisms bled over, meshed and co-mingled. It happened with long-term partners. They picked up each other's parts of speech, body language and mannerisms without meaning to. Just as he'd sworn a week ago he'd heard a suspiciously sounding Zen quote leave Reese's lips, but he knew better to call her on it. It was the natural progression of any coupling that worked – but it still made him jealous of Crews' relationship with the dark haired detective.

Said woman in question appeared in the doorway, looking all of 5'3", in her two-inch boots; she leveled a questioning skeptical gaze at them both saving them from any deeper reflection and contemplation. Tidwell asked, "what?" and Crews simply exhaled deeply and climbed down from the conference table with a smile.

"Back already?" he quipped dusting away his doubt like cobwebs before a broom, "and in time for lunch." He steered her by the elbow toward the door before the Captain could engage her in conversation and shepherded her to the garage intent on continuing the conversation inside his waiting car. They never got there.

"So…" he started unsure of his tack.

"So…" she responded a tiny bit of amusement in her voice.

"How'd it go?" he tried to make his tone sound light.

"Can the crap, Crews." She called him out and pulled up short. "We're not going anywhere but back to work," she turned and headed back.

"Dani," he stopped her with that single word. Her motion stopped but she steadfastly remained facing away from him, collecting herself, but in those moments he closed on her and when she was ready he was there.

"We talked about this," he warned.

"No," she said forcefully. "We didn't talk. You decided for both of us and that's just not going to work for me."

"So you wanna decide for both of us and that's not gonna work for me," he told her sternly.

"Jesus," she exhaled. "We sound like my parents." She turned to face him and found him examining her comment with a strange look on his face and his eyes focused at some point in time well out of their collective reach. "Crews," she barked, "focus."

"Tell me what happened," he pled. "And if you won't tell me that, then tell me that he'll never hurt you and that you believe it."

"We didn't talk about that," she commented dryly.

"Then what did you talk about?" he wondered aloud.

"You," she told him plainly.

"Wanna tell me about that?"

Stone silence met him.

"OK...I know you don't, but do it anyway," he directed with annoyance. Only Dani Reese could rob him of his hard earned Zen detachment and she could do in a instant with something as simple as a look. She unhinged him, drove him crazy and he considered he must do the same to her.

She cocked her head and looked hard at him. Part of her was annoyed at how much he sounded like he was bossing her around, but another part heard the concern in his voice and recognized the fear in his face. She realized he'd worried the whole time she was gone and it touched her a place she thought was dead. She shook her head and smiled.

"You…you are a lot of trouble for me Crews. Since the day you walked into my life nothing has been the same. You've turned my life upside down and…"

"…made you unhappy," he offered dejectedly.

"No…." she said somewhat forcefully, "not unhappy…." She struggled for the right word to describe what he did to her, finally settling on "awake." This made Charlie smile.

"I feel like before I was sleep walking through my life – looking but not seeing. Not feeling because it hurt too damned much, but you… you just…I don't know Crews…you don't give up. Something happened here," she gestured back and forth between them, "something I haven't felt in a longtime, something I might not be ready for – I might never be ready for. But you - I trust - maybe? Have faith in I guess, but you - I believe in."

"And you told this to your father?" he wondered with his whole body his brows arching and voice higher than he wanted. It was more than he dreamed over ever frothing forth from the lips for the usually reticent Dani Reese.

"No," she paused. "He told me." She paused and examined his face for signs or signals – he gave her none. She continued, "Said he came to your house to shoot you. Ranted for a good ten minutes about your pathological inability to lock doors and says he saw us together."

"Together? Sleeping? He saw us sleeping together." The panic in his voice was palpable. "Jesus, no wonder he wanted to kill me," he commented to himself.

It somewhat amused her that her normally unflappable Zen warrior was frightened by the prospect of being caught by her father like they were teenagers found necking in the basement, producing a smug smirk on her face as she nodded and explained.

"He said I was happy like I hadn't been since I was a kid. I felt safe and you know what? He's right, but it's more than that. When I'm with you I feel…" she reached for the word but couldn't find it so Crews provided it for her.

"Loved," he finished.

She looked down embarrassed. "I don't know…maybe…."

"You are," he continued talking resolutely over her embarrassment, "loved." He stopped and let what he'd said sink in. "I'm past being able to ignore how I feel. I don't want to ignore it - or you. You have to know I can't control it - don't you?" She nodded.

"You can't control your mouth most days and so you keep telling me," she looked up at him, shaking her head ruefully. "It's not like I could stop you. You're like a force of nature, Crews," her wry grin made him know she was too upset at the prospect. Those knowing grins from her always made him smile.

"Guessing your dad wasn't too happy about this revelation?"

"Uh...no," she delivered the rest of the news. "He still wants to kill you. Maybe even now more than ever. He considers 'us' the ultimate betrayal, even though there is no 'us.' He said he didn't shoot you because I deserve to be happy and if you make me happy then he'd have to reconsider."

"So how'd you leave it with him? Wait…what do you mean there's no "us"?

"What do you think Crews?" she retorted rolling her eyes.

He shrugged absolutely unsure of her move. He knew better than to expect a reciprocal confession of affection, but her dialogue let him know she was warming to the idea that they could be … something more than just partners. He didn't push – Dani when pressured exploded or ran and neither were useful now. He need her close to keep her safe.

In the meantime, she filled in the blank space with braggadocio that he knew she didn't really feel. "He said he'd turn himself in – to us. But first he needed to talk to my mother. I gave him that much, I owe him that much."

Charlie nodded in understanding. "This is going to be hard on you. Him being arrested, especially if you do the arresting," he offered.

"I got it. I can do it. It's my job," she stuck her chin out. She was tougher than people gave her credit for and more fragile than anyone would believe. He alone seemed to appreciate this aspect of her nature.

Crews exhaled. "You're tough," he said one part wonder and another trepidation.

"You're just now figuring that out?"

"Guess if you ever fall out of love with me I'm toast huh?" he joked and leaned into her personal space intent on kissing her gently.

She stopped him with her hand in the middle of his chest and replied against lips poised to kiss her, "I never said I loved you." He could tell she was joking, he hoped she was joking, but he held his breath anyway. Slowly her fingers left his chest and the top ones curled around his tie pulling him the millimeters remaining to her waiting lips.

"Can we talk about my ties? You're kinda hard on them," he murmured across her lips teasing her with tiny touches.

"Buy another damned tie, Charlie," she demanded capturing his lips in hers, pulling him down to her. He wanted the kiss to be soft and chaste, Dani had other plans. The moment his lips touched hers fully they ignited like a flash fire. His clothes felt too tight, the earth too hot and Dani Reese too far away. They quickly raced out of control and when they broke he was shocked to find them wrapped around each other with their hands in very indiscreet places. She blushed furiously, pushed him away and stalked off.

He stood glued to the spot unable to move. When he didn't follow, she returned grabbed him by the hand and muttered, "Honestly I can't take you anywhere," as if he'd become lost at the mall.

Charlie wore a bemused smile for the better part of the afternoon. She might never say it but she loved him – or she was warming to the idea - he was sure of it.


	14. Chapter 14

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Firestorm **

_**Believe those seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.**_

It was a week later. The path that led them here was broken, muddy and unclear, but the end was near Charlie thought - as he trailed Jack Reese to the roof. It was the same roof they'd met on once before – overlooking the Bank of LA, which now seemed to be the genesis of all their problems. The day of that shoot out Jack Reese made a choice that affected them all for years to come. In an instant he changed all their lives and he was about to do it again, a stone's throw from the sight of his original sin.

Charlie outdistanced Reese by virtue of his longer stride and her pathological insistence on always driving. It was the first time he'd ever been thankful for her demand to always drive their unmarked, as it gave him a crucial advantage – lead time. He left the car seconds of ahead of her, but he quickly put his long limbs to work moving far faster than his young partner who was a full foot shorter than him could manage. He hit the elevator in time to see her enter the building and the heated glare she shot him made him know he'd pay for this slight later; but he wanted time alone with Jack Reese. This was the only way he'd get it.

He pulled impatiently at the doors as the elevator opened slowly on the top floor. Three flights of stairs waited through a door to his right to his destination - the roof. He pulled his pistol and climbed the stairs two at a time. Dani would be right on his heels. He had precious minutes to learn truths he sought.

He yanked open the door to the roof and blinding white LA sunlight obscured his vision. His orange sunglasses helped only slightly, beating back the laser like quality of the light. If Reese wanted him dead, this would be his last chance before that ship sailed for good. Crews held up his hand like a shield as his eyes adjusted, knowing it would not stop a bullet with his name on it.

But Reese was standing near the edge staring at the people below. There was no way the older man missed the sound of the door opening; he was deliberately ignoring the threat behind him.

"Jack?" Crews drew his name out into a question. He kept his pistol trained on Dani's father, but the man made no move to face him. He inclined his head to let Crews know he'd heard him, but continued looking at the ant farm of tiny figures on the pavement far below. Both Reese's hands were visible. He held no weapon. Charlie holstered his pistol and approached the white haired man.

"My daughter with you?" Jack asked.

"Yeah," Charlie responded still breathless from the stairs. "Right behind me."

"Yeah, well, I'll make this quick. Remember the first time you asked me to meet you up here?" Reese seemed uncharacteristically introspective.

Charlie nodded and gave another breathless, "yeah."

"You gave me a chance – to get right – to set things right. I didn't take it. I kept thinking I could outrun it, but I can't."

"What's this about Jack?" Charlie asked.

"It's about making things right in the only way I still can," Reese continued looking down. "I can't let you take me in. I can't…I won't put Dani and her mother through that. I can't do what they want me to anymore either. There's only one way out of this," he risked a look at Charlie. "You and I both know it," Jack held Crews eyes.

Charlie knew what he intended. To step off into the thin clear LA air and meet his death. Reese was choosing the most permanent and unchangeable of all his options. He was tired of fighting. Charlie nodded having wrestled with the thought in that 8x10 foot cell all those long years. He wouldn't try to talk him out of it – some people would interpret his choice as weakness, but Charlie knew Jack Reese was making a noble choice to protect those he loved from pain, embarrassment and a lifetime of looking over their shoulder.

"Take care of my daughter?" Reese asked him.

Charlie nodded, and then spoke the words that would give the man peace, "No one will hurt her as long as I live. I'll protect her til the day I die."

"I know you will, son," Reese said sighing heavily. He stepped to the ledge.

It took every impulse in him not to reach for the man - even a man that had caused him as much pain as Jack Reese. The cop in him wanted to save everyone, but the con in him knew that some people were beyond salvation, so he turned away and let him go. He breathed deeply and listened to the air whistling across the roof coming in from the sea and the silence left behind when Reese departed.

This had all been for naught. He'd failed again. Why did life bring him here to the brink – only to disappoint him again? He was grasping at straws, trying to hold a fistful of sand, empty vacant air as incapable of answering him as it had been at holding Jack Reese aloft. _There would be no answers; perhaps there were no answers – just more questions_, he thought.

Then his answer unexpectedly arrived as the door banged opened and the small dark form of his partner emerged. She stalked toward him angry and breathless, "Where is he?" she questioned. She was his "why." She was why he was here.

"He's gone," was all he could summon.

"What…what do you mean gone? He was here right?" she catapulted from tired to angry in milliseconds.

"Dani," he said levelly, reaching out to her with his voice. He tried to touch her but she resisted knowing what she already felt at some level. Her partner spoke the truth; her father was gone.

She stalked to the edge of the roof where a shiny object lay in the rocks and tar on the roof. It was her father's badge, the one they gave him when he retired. His most prized possession. She looked beyond and could make out the emergency response vehicles converging below. "No," she rejected. "No!"

Her tears came and she felt him in her space, holding her, soothing her, protecting her as he always did - as only he could. "Why?" she whispered wheeling to sink her head to his chest, still clutching her father's badge.

"Sometimes there is no why," he told her the unvarnished truth. "People we love are gone and there is no why," he said as he felt sobs wrack her small body.

It took about four minutes for her to wear herself out, but she did. She pulled away from him angrily wiping at her tears. He loved her in that moment for never once considering he had anything to do with it – everyone else would.

"I'm okay," she reassured. "Did he say anything?" she looked at him expectantly.

Dani did guilt in a way few people did. Maybe it was intrinsic to her nature, maybe it was a function of her Catholic upbringing, maybe she felt she deserved to bear the weight of other people's sins, but this he would not let her carry alone. In fact he wasn't going to let her carry it at all. He wanted to give her the peace that she was so often denied.

"Only that he loved you and your mom," he lied. He looked into her dark brown eyes with his blue ones, which also held tears, not for Jack but for his only daughter. The lie rolled easily off his tongue as his eyes sold his story. He watched her believe it, because she believed him. Inside he vowed it would be the last time he was ever less than 100% honest with her, but it was the lie she needed to hear, to know, to believe.

"The Department will say that you killed him," she predicted. "Considering your history and how much you two hated each other. Why couldn't you wait? Why would you come up here alone?" She sounded lost and she looked at him with tears glistening in her eyes.

"So you wouldn't have to," he told her plainly.

"Crews…" she warned as he cautiously approached her.

He shushed her. "If you have to bury your anger somewhere, put it here," he pointed at his chest. She shook him off.

"It was his choice, Dani," he counseled. "I'm here honey, whatever you need," he pulled her against him. She fought him out of habit, weakly attempted to wrest away from his iron strong grip. Failing in that she battered her fists against his rib cage.

"Didn't I tell you not to call me that? Didn't I?" She raged against the phantom wrong of an inconsequential comment, releasing her pent up fury against him. She raged in protest against her father, against her lack of control and in her heat and fury she was like unto little firestorm. His long arms held her tight against his ice blue Zen. He tempered her, he always would.

He told her quietly they needed to leave, that soon units would converge on the roof to investigate the origin of the body on the pavement below. He told her that she should leave her father's badge where she'd found it. He counseled that eventually it would be released from evidence and she'd get it back, but she was unable to let go of it. He didn't try to talk her out of it. He simply took her by the hand and led her from the roof.

Charlie sympathized with her attachment. She was the something he was unable to let go of - no matter the danger, no matter the lunacy, no matter the impossibility of them together. She remained the one constant that he could not prevent himself from wanting.


	15. Chapter 15

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN – Firestorm (Epilogue)**

Four short days later, there was the inevitable funeral, which was painful for everyone. Dani was imminently uncomfortable seeing other cops hide their eyes while they wore dress blues and dutifully paid tribute to a hero cop was tough enough. Ignoring the white elephant of his suicide while seeing her father Jack buried with full honors made it hard to see straight. She alone bore the knowledge of how he'd lived and how he'd died - for Dani did not tell her mother. She chose to spare her mother the pain and carried the burden alone.

Neither of them spoke about what Jack said to them. Neither of the women in his life knew what the other knew and what the other hid. The secrecy and distrust he'd created in his family remained even after Jack Reese made his peace and left this world. It seemed that they never talked about the important things in the Reese family and they never would.

Normally, Dani would have worn her dress uniform and served as part of the honor guard or as a pallbearer for a funeral, but she took the unusual step of taking a leave of absence and attending her father's as a civilian. She was tired of hiding behind the veneer of navy blue propriety with ribbons and badges when many of the men who wore them were operating in the shadows. Instead she wore a tasteful dark grey suit and sat with her mother who was dressed in traditional black. On the lapel of her suit was a simple white orchid, a gift with no giver, which arrived along with a bouquet of the same lovely orchids for her mother. Her mother remarked on the thoughtfulness of the Department, but Dani knew the source of the sad flowers was none other than her partner who deliberately stayed away.

They sat stoically side by side through the graveside service, but when the honor guard presented the tri-folded flag navy bearing five white stitched stars to her mother Dani found herself wanting the strength, quiet confidence of her partner who could not accompany her on this day. The retort of the gun salute made her shudder and she felt cold despite the bright LA sun. A haze filled her eyes as a procession of policemen and friends expressed their perfunctory condolences. She felt hollow within and brittle without. She missed Charlie. She longed for his blue eyes telling her it would be okay and his arms wrapping her tightly in his embrace.

Crews, as predicted, was suspended until evidence proved he had not pushed the decorated SWAT officer off the roof and out of respect for Dani he made no attempt to attend the memorial service or graveside burial replete with the obligatory firing squad gun salute. But he could not stay away from her so he stood far away in the shadow of a great oak tree watching the mourners trickle away. Finally when only Dani and her mother remained, he left his silent post and stepped from the shadows into the sun.

Dani saw the orange of his hair as soon as the sun lit it and for the first time all day she smiled. That he could summon a smile from her on the darkest of recent days made him immeasurably happy. He could hear the funeral home director offer to take her mother home in a limousine as Dani hugged her mom tightly promising she'd visit more often. He approached silently on the soft green of the lush cemetery grass, crossing the distance to his partner in long strides but circling around behind her mother's view – or so he thought.

"You can come out now," Dani's mother spoke to Crews at a distance and he did stepping from the oblique angle he'd been cutting amongst the grave markers. He knew this would come. He both welcomed and dreaded it.

"I didn't want to intrude," he apologized and sought to explain. "But…"

"You needed to be here."

Charlie nodded curtly. The comfortable armor of the business suit he wore suddenly felt constricting and confining. Dani's mother was her only remaining family and Charlie wanted to make a favorable impression. He feared that possibility was slipping away so he remained mute lest he make things worse.

Dani's eyes found his and they smiled at him – just her eyes – he returned her gaze and tried to will her patience and tranquility. While he knew he should pay attention to her mother, he couldn't stop looking at his partner.

"My husband told me about you," she interrupted talked directly to Charlie while still holding her daughter's hand. "He said you make Dani happy. My daughter has not known happiness in a long time Mr. Crews," she stated the obvious.

"I can't make her happy. Only Dani can do that," Charlie explained.

"Hello," Dani interrupted, "uh – standing right here," she shot an annoyed comment at both of them earning her a dark look from both her mother and her partner.

"What promises are you going to make me Mister Crews?" Dani's mother was hurt but not hostile. She was looking to him for some kind of hope.

"Mom," Dani sighed and shifted uncomfortably.

Charlie's attention remained with his partner and he wanted to step to her side, but restrained himself. He covered the distance with his eyes, blue and unblinking, crinkled at the corners from a slight but true smile.

He thought about not answering her mother at all, but then reconsidered and gave her what he could, "that I'll be there for her – as much or as little as she'll let me. That I won't let anyone hurt her and that I'll protect her as best I can," he offered. "Beyond that is up to her – it always has been."

Dani's mother said nothing, instead she stood looking at him – through him - long enough that he took off his attention off Dani and looked back. Her mother seemed to find the answer she was looking for in his face and eyes and then without another word, turned and walked to the waiting car. She never looked back.

"She's upset," Dani excused.

"She's you in twenty years," he volunteered, "if you don't let someone love you."

"Someone meaning you?" she fired back testily.

"Someone meaning someone," he retorted, "but yes, I'd like that job." He smiled shyly at her. "We have a chance here," he commented, "to walk away from the past and move ahead together. I'd like if you'd go there - with me."

"Go where?" she asked confused.

"Wherever there is," he commented.

"Just for the record, I hate all this Zen crap," she told him what he already knew.

"I know that. But you don't hate me," he offered boldly.

She looked down and then away into the distance, "No, Charlie I don't hate you. But you must hate yourself if you want to put up with me for the rest of your life."

"It's my life," he told her plainly and took her hand. "Why don't you let me decide?"

"Like I could stop you," she commented wryly.

"Heaven and earth can't stop me, honey," he bragged.

"Haven't I told you not to call me that?" she gritted out through clenched teeth.

"You must be under the delusion that I listen to you," he laughed softly.

She shot him a dirty look.

He had no idea why she stifled herself from yelling at him in the silence of the cemetery. Maybe it was the solemnity of the setting, or maybe that even with all he'd done she still missed her father or just the hushed air around them, but she was subdued in her scolding. He made a mental note to kiss a smile onto those pursed lips later.

"What do you want to do today, Reese?" he asked their world brimming with possibilities. The storm clouds that often covered her face lifted for a moment and in there he could see hundreds of sunny moments yet to come. She would recover from this; they'd do it together. She was not as easily convinced.

"I dunno," she said dully. She just needed help he realized, a nudge, a gentle push in any direction as long as it was forward.

"You can come with me to get my stitches out," he pointed at his sleeved forearm. "It itches – must be time," he grinned.

"I can take those out for you," she commented absently.

"Detective, Nurse, Race Car Driver…and world class kisser – is there anything you can't do?" he teased. She smirked at him and he winked back. "If I wasn't afraid you'd shoot me I'd kiss you right here and now," he said conspiratorially.

"I will knock you into next week," she glowered. Then after a beat she added, "Wait till we get in the car," and a smile of her own.

"Let's go home, then," he said tugging on their linked and joined hands urging her towards his car parked in the distance.

"Good thing you're here," she commented.

"You miss me?" He winked at her again.

"No," she snorted. She'd make a show of how little she wanted and needed him, except that they both knew she did. Or at least he knew – she continued to pretend she didn't. "I don't have a car here, smart ass. I came with my mom. Don't think for a second that I can't do without you Crews." She said the words to convince herself that he wasn't rapidly becoming as essential to her as air. But they both knew better.

Their lives were as woven together as their hands. Work and play, life and death, love and hate, light and shadow, hot and cold, they were two extremes held together by the thinnest, but the strongest of glues – trust.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Note: Not much of a response to this story in reviews - would love to know your thoughts on this story (good or bad). I went a decidedly different direction in this at the suggestion of a helpful reader &amp; reviewed (GhostWriterLost). I think I like this Crews &amp; Reese relationship better than the dramatically romantic "happily ever afters" I usually write. It's more real. These are damaged people and a relationship for them would be a struggle not a fairytale.<em>

_A serious word on the characterization of suicide in this story. **It's a plot device. **The real taking of your own life is not the answer. No matter how bad things are - they will change. Suicide is permanent solution to a temporary problem. Change your situation, change your view, change your outlook, but never ever believe that "not being" is an answer - it ends every question you will ever be able to ask. If you think about this seriously, you are not alone. Everyone has darkness in their lives. Talk to someone._

_ Suicide is not glamourous and those you leave behind pay for your choice - not you._


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